Detroit's blistering finish to the regular season has been highly publicized and discussed from media outlets local and national. But how good was it really? And how does this almost "down" season compare with the great and relevant teams of recent years past?
The Red Wings have not only looked like the Red Wings of old in recent weeks, they have looked better. To illustrate, here is a breakdown of Detroit's season into four quarters.
1. First 20 games of season: 10-6-4, 24 points, .500 winning percentage.
2. Next 20 games: 10-8-2, 22, .500
3. Next 21 games: 8-7-6, 22 points, .381
4. Last 21 games (since NHL play resumed from the Olympics break): 16-3-2, 34 points, .762
That final stretch has been unbelievable and unbelievably enjoyable to watch. What is crazy about that run is if you subtract eight points from that total of 34, four wins from that total of 16, the Wings would still have attained their best quarter of the season but would not have made the playoffs. That is how necessary and important each of those wins were!
Detroit just barely managed to earn 100 points for the tenth straight season, but get this--they only had ten less points than last season, which has been the measuring stick for this season all along. This group of Wings accumulated only 13 points less than that great 2007-08 Stanley Cup team, and just 14 less than that Hall of Fame, 2001-02 Stanley Cup team that Mitch Albom referred to as "the best team-ever". Not too "down" of a season in comparison, eh?
This is even more interesting...I was shocked to look back and see this. If you go back to the 1990s, back to the back-to-back Stanley Cup seasons, the Wings earned just one more point in 1997-98 than this season! They earned eight less than in 1996-97! Are you freaking kidding me? That squad was my favorite roster of all time and will no doubt go down in my books as the greatest Red Wings team that I will ever see! I broke down that 96-97 season into quarters too, check this out.
1. 11-7-2 (2 ties), 24 points
2. 9-6-5, 23 points
3. 10-6-5, 25 points
4. 8-7-6, 22 points
A very consistent, if not outstanding season, and very similar to this year in the first 61 games with 72 points then and 68 now. With 94 points, the 1996-97 Wings were the third seed in the Western Conference. With 94 points the 2009-10 Wings would not even make the playoffs!
So, in case you're just tuning in, that final run was huge, and this season has been special!
I hate to call this guy out again, but someone commented on one of my Facebook posts that the Wings are not "relevant" this year. What the guy probably meant is, "The NHL regular season doesn't matter, and if the Wings aren't in the hunt then what's the point in paying attention to hockey?"
I understand this mentality, and I hate it. It reeks of fan entitlement and the Red Wings' band-wagon ride. I also understand that for a lot of people, hockey is a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth sport. That's fine. But how can anyone living in Michigan say that the Red Wings are irrelevant when the football team goes 2-30 in the past two seasons and gets more coverage and draws more fan attention with an offseason free agency signing? Don't get me wrong! I follow the damn Lions' every move too! Relevance! 
Sorry for the digression, but I'm not quite done. I don't normally discuss teams and seasons in which my only frames of reference are statistics and stories, but could this be the most relevant Red Wings regular season since 1983-84 when a rookie by the name of Steve Yzerman revived the "Dead" Wings. I don't know, I can't say, I was only two/three years old during that season. Has this regular season been more relevant than Scotty Bowman's second season in 1995-96? Do you remember what made that season so relevant besides the birth of the Colorado rivalry? Does 62 wins ring a bell. An NHL record jog your memory? Pretty damn relevant, but where was the controversy, the struggle, the adversity to make it so compelling?
The second installment of my Year In Review will be posted soon!
Peace
Not to rain on your parade (I'm also really pumped about the Red Wings and watched almost every game this year) but points are easier to come by now than they were in the past with the 3-point game and the requirement that every game have a team that comes away with 2 points.
ReplyDeleteThey still had a great year, don't get me wrong, but comparisons with the past don't hold up that well.
It would be interesting to go back and "re-score" the Wings season. Call all shootout contests ties, see where it would put them point wise.
ReplyDeleteI think this team has been the most interesting and compelling since the 97-98 squad. That team had true tragedy and adversity with the loss of Fetisov and Konstantinov. This team has the less significant, but still real adversity of injuries, the cap, the fall of Osgood, and the rise of Howard.
These guys are scrappers. They've been written off, but continue to battle. It's going to be a fun playoff ride.
Excellent point Adam, though I'm not sure if the "easier points" theory holds up for the Wings this year...though the 3-point games certainly helped their opponents.
ReplyDeleteDetroit has 44 wins with 14 OT/SO losses this season. That's 14 points extra points in defeat.
In 96-97 they had 38 wins and 18 ties for 94 points. 97-98 they had 44 wins 15 ties for 103 points.
The Wings only have 24 regulation losses this season compared to 38 in 96-97 and 23 in 97-98.
If the Wings were a good shootout team and were able to pick up an extra 4-5 wins during extra time then I would concede your argument. If anything the 3-point games hurt Detroit this season.
Well I think you're right, and I am not looking to start an argument, but in 1997 and 1998 you didn't get a point for reaching OT. If you lost in OT, you got 0. The NHL put the rule in place because they felt teams were playing too conservatively in OT; rather take a tie and 1 point, than work hard for 63 minutes (or whatever arbitrary point in the OT session a goal was scored) and come away with nothing. So in 1997, they lost 2 games in OT, which makes for 96 points. Plus they had 18 ties; if you required a shootout in all of those games, even if the Red Wings only won 40% of those shootouts (which was this year's clip), that's another 7 points, taking you to 103. Similarly, a 40% clip in shootouts on the 15 ties in 1998 would be another 6 points, taking them to 109.
ReplyDeleteMy point was just that the shootout forcing games to end in a win, and the point for getting to OT, throw off the numbers a bit. And that's not counting what's more difficult to measure: teams playing more aggressively in OT because they know they're guaranteed a point, instead of playing conservatively to try and ensure they don't come away empty-handed.
This has been a great season to watch and it is scary to think of how high we would have finished if we had been 100% or even 90% healthy all year long. However, the year we swept Philly is still my favorite Wings team ever. I will never ever forget McCarty's goal on the breakaway in the finals and that to this day is still my favorite Detroit goal of all-time.
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